Food, Inc. Opens in South Florida

The film “Food, Inc.” has now opened in various locations across South Florida:

Fort Lauderdale, FL: Gateway 4

North Miami, FL: Intracoastal 8

Palm Beach Gardens, FL: BMC PGA Cinema 6

Miami Beach, FL: South Beach 18

Food, Inc. presents a documentary-style look at the food industry of the US, and what exactly is happening behind those happy farms that provide us all with our food. From the movie website:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

I’ve been hearing about this film for a while thanks to some friends in Seattle who run a locavore website called CookLocal.com.Local foodie website Miami Dish also ran a story on the movie recently; I recommend checking this site also for local shopping info.

I intend to go see it, fully aware that it will affect how I eat, what I eat and how/where I shop from now on. I think everyone should as well (especially before it is bumped off the theatres by the latest blockbuster to come). Most people will ignore it, as usual, but if a small percentage can be affected and made to change their shopping/eating ways, I think we’ll be on course for a better tomorrow. Frankly, I hope many Miami/South Florida people go see and perhaps like that we’ll all work towards improving the availability of locally-grown foods.